A New Change Brings Consistent Habits
by Anonymous Conservative
Summary: It has been 5 years since Sasuke's returned to Konoha,and he hasn't fully realized the changes that happened within him until one uneventful daily morning routine... Updated and completed on June 24th, finally, read for further details. Read and Review, please!


Disclaimer: I own nothing.

I've tried to write and portray the characters as they are in the original as accurate as possible, so please make sure you Read and Review. Not only will it take 1 minute to write a review, but it also provides me with adequate feedback on what I should improve.

Now, enough of my ranting, onward with the actual story.

**Note: If you're new to this story, please skip the updates below and move on to the actual story.**

**Update on March 16th, 2012: Instead of an additional chapter (since I can't think of any worthwhile material to expand this story without ruining the mood and plot), I expanded the chapter, so hopefully (especially to those lovely people who reviewed) this is enough.**

**Update on May 10th, 2012: I've skimmed over this story a couple of times, and I'm not entirely happy with it. So, what I've decided to do was to keep updating on a consistent basis until I'm completely happy with the outcome. Hopefully, the "plot line" (if there was one to being with) will be more smooth and not rushed as I perceive it to be. To the readers who have already read this, hopefully the additional words are satisfactory and thank you for your support!**

**Update on June 24th, 2012: I think I'm finally happy with this story now that I've finally added the finishing touches. If you liked this story, I'm starting another one just to let you know. I don't know when exactly I'll finish, probably soon, but I know it will contain a much darker tone. **

**If I get enough reviews, then I will post the new story.**

A New Change Brings Consistent Habits

Morning came as the glaring light emanating from the morning sun peeked through the curtains and shone upon a man's face. He stirred, seeking refuge from the unforgiving light, his black hair slowly heating up from soaking in the sun's rays. When he finally realized that nothing he tried was going to put him back to sleep, he gave a disgruntled noise while kicking off the covers from his comfortable bed without disturbing his slumbering partner next to him.

Another day, another rewind of the day before, the man thought as he lumbered to the bathroom to commence his usual morning routine. With heavy-lidded eyes from the disgruntled waking, he looked at himself in the mirror. What was yesterday known to his peers as a cleanly dressed, intelligent-looking man was now a mess of cropped hair on one side from sleep, and unruly hair sprouting out from his chin. As he gazed himself in the mirror, his hand unconsciously reached for the razor set against a mug on a sink. With a hazy composure, Sasuke applied white shaving cream onto his right palm as he readied for his daily shave. His stubble was about to be coated with white cream when Sasuke stopped his hand in mid-air.

It was strange, he recalled. Even though he experienced an early growth spurt in his teen years, Sasuke only started growing facial hair a few years ago. When it first happened, it was a bit of a shock to him. It was uncommon for men in his family alone to grow facial hair, let alone, a beard. He vaguely remembered when he was young, his father, despite his hard, unforgiving composure, his face was smooth and baby-like compared to the grizzled and battle-worn shinobi young Sasuke was used to seeing in the barracks. So when it finally happened, it brought about a new (yet unpleasant) change in his life...

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><p>He was eighteen when it first occurred, when everything seemed to fall into place. The war had ended, and although Tobi was supposed to be captured alive, the current circumstances were out of Sasuke's reach and was forced to take his life out of the primordial instinct to survive. How ironic, a boy who had once admitted gladly to give up his life for his twisted goals, was forced to kill the man who had given him the chance to achieve his ambitions.<p>

When the Fourth Ninja War had ended, the village was able to relax after months of tension looming in the air. Ninja returned to their loved ones, while newborns of the veterans replaced the deceased.

It was around that time when the notorious stubble appeared.

Sasuke quickly realized he had no choice. He went public, considering he had no choice since none of his family members ever had the experience of this sudden physical change. And when it happened, it literally shocked his fellow village men. Quite frankly, the closest thing to that was considered as "facial hair" in the Konoha Eleven were Naruto's whiskers...

Although Sasuke remained to stick out like a sore thumb due to his previous actions, nevertheless girls continued to follow him like stalkers. At first, he was alright with it, patient even, since many had lost their loved ones in the war, but soon grew to dread it. Atoning for his previous actions was one thing, but allowing himself to be wallowed up by hormone-induced women was another matter. Memories of his days in the Academy replayed over and over like a broken record, and it seemed his stubble was attracting more females than ever rather than the opposite. While taking his walks, he would hear constant talks about his current look as he passed by the gossiping ladies sitting in the nearest tables, animatedly discussing how dashingly rugged he has become, one even claiming, "his five o'clock look gives him that careless feel, like a rebel in an uptight society."

It was weird, he thought, despite all the trouble he had stirred in the already-boiling cauldron of hostility between the Great Five Shinobi Nations combined with Sasuke's limited knowledge of women, he knew for a fact that traitors were a definite turn-off. To his utter despair, he was wrong. Maybe Konoha women are geared differently?

And it was when this time the woman he had as his teammate in the olden days returned to his life.

When Naruto had dragged his comrade to their birthplace, an ocean of men, women, and children eagerly waited at the front gates to greet and hail their valiant hero. The crowd had begun cheering when a silhouette appeared on the horizon, only to scream even more in joy when another contour of a human accompanied the first. What started as a roar of joy and happiness, the atmosphere completely died the instant when one of the crowd members was able to make out the shape of one of the man's heads. Unfortunately, their initial plans had to be adjusted because of the ninja Naruto was carrying was not a fellow ally member, but one of the village's most notorious criminals.

Sasuke stood beside Naruto, awaiting for the chaos to unfold and presumably defend himself from the oncoming pitchforks and the occasional torch hurling towards his head. However, things went smoother than anticipated. There was a stir in the crowd: someone was trying to elbow their way to the front to get a better glimpse of both the deserter and savior, and that person happened to be Sakura. Not only was she the first woman to fully look at Sasuke in the eyes (the men were busy shielding the women from a possible assault), she was the first to punch him squarely in the jaw.

Sakura, as Sasuke remembered, more than willingly followed him around like a lapdog, never questioning his actions and was the girl who would willingly take a kunai for him. What surprised him the most was her punch, surprisingly. Behind the hit was not the bone-crushing chakra-enhanced power that she and the Fifth Hokage were renowned for, but what met between her incoming fist and his face was the raw physical strength she possessed prior to her training. So she didn't mean to kill me, he thought, and the next thing he remembered was being picked up by the collar with his feet off the ground and looking at her distraught face, discovering that fresh tears were falling from her eyes. Funny, he remembered, it was the exact same face he left her with, except she's looking at me directly with determination instead of desperation...

Although she was still annoying as he had called her constantly many years ago, but he couldn't help but respect her vitality and how committed she was in representing her love for him. It wasn't really a simple crush, he recalled, for crushes are never permanent, but what she was showing was genuine display of affection.

After a year of ongoing treatment, positive energy from the one and only knucklehead, and company of his friends slowly quenched his fire of vengeance. It was still dormant within him, always waiting to emerge at every orifice, but this time, it was a different situation. His comrades are now fully aware of the consequences, and what Sasuke considered his tragedies incomparable to the other residents of the village, their losses in the war lessened his grief and allowed him to establish connections with people. It wasn't an easy task, to say the least, recuperating both his damaged mind and body was a slow, painstaking process and often felt restless from the snail-like pace of his new life.

For the first few months of his rehabilitation, she refused to acknowledge him as a friend, merely treating him as an acquaintance and acting as the stoic healer whenever he sustained bruises and cuts from the barrage of fists and weapons by crowds of angry villagers and the occasional slugging from Naruto for his "inconsiderate manners around friends," he said.

This cycle continued to happen until she agreed to accompany him on one of his nightly walks, only to be met by a mob of angry women who had lost their loved ones from the war. He told Sakura to get away, which she uneasily obeyed after a short argument with him. She came back after a short while, feeling anxious after he didn't return from their run-in with the women. What she saw was when she discovered him was far from expected. What normally would be mounds of unconscious bodies piled under the confident foot of the Uchiha with a grin etched on his face, was him sprawled on the floor with an aloof look in his face, covered in bruises with a trickle of blood running down from his mouth and forehead.

Mounting him on her back, she ran to his apartment and proceeded to give him medical attention.

_"Why didn't you fight back?" She asked while applying rubbing alcohol to clean the cuts on his arm, hearing a hiss from his mouth._

_He remained mute, until five minutes later. "It's wrong to harm a woman, no matter what age," he grunted._

_Sakura was wrapping bandages to cover his wounds when she stopped and looked at him when he heard his response. "You didn't have a problem with that when you tried to kill both me and Karin," she huffed. Throughout the entire medical procedure, he kept the same aloof look she saw when he was beaten to the ground._

_"Hn," was the only answer she got from him. She finished wrapping bandages around his waist, laid him carefully in bed and sat in his bedside chair with crossed arms._

_"Why are you still here?" He said after an awkward silence settled into the room._

_"I have to look after you," she flatly replied. "Two of your ribs are broken, so when you try to get up, you can't except me to just leave you there waiting to puncture one of your lungs." She picked up on the books lying near the bedside table and pretended to read to avoid further conversation._

_Sasuke turned his head and looked at her in a peculiar manner and smirked. "You're reading your book upside down," he muttered._

_Luckily, he wasn't able to see Sakura turn a shade of pink behind her book from her embarrassment, which led her to shut the pages with one hand in a deafening sound and snorted and resumed crossing her arms. _

_ It wasn't until the early morning hours when Sakura was starting to feel drowsy that Sasuke finally spoke. "I'm sorry," he whispered. It was loud enough for Sakura to hear those two words. "Excuse me?" She said in disbelief._

_Sasuke refused to lock eyes with her. "... I'm sorry."_

_She got up from her chair and gave a light glare as if she was scrutinizing him for his reason for his sudden apology and gave an exasperated sigh. "No, Sasuke, I should be the one who's sorry," she replied. "I shouldn't have left you there considering your current stance with the village so you can get beat up by those... women." She could not help but slightly giggle at the end. The great Uchiha Sasuke, beaten by women? It is a definitely moment she will not forget anytime soon._

_He ignored her giggle as it damaged his pride both as a man and an Uchiha. "I wasn't apologizing about what happened earlier," he softly said, ceasing the giggles and earning a surprised look from Sakura. "It's what I did to you years ago."_

_Sakura was shocked in the least. After years of harbouring sadness and rejection, it felt as though a big weight was lifted off her shoulders after all this time. A single tear slowly fell down her eye and flowed down to her cheek. "Thank you," she murmured._

It was after this that he inadvertently realized; a repressed emotion blossomed with the help of the current atmosphere Sasuke was adjusting to: love. From love, his compassionate, mature side began to resurface, but his jealousy side flared and took a new course. and decided to give her a chance. It took him a while to realize this, after hearing about the numerous courting from considerable suitors, one even going through lengths to write her a love letter during the heady war, she continued to stay faithful to him. At first, it was out of sympathy; give her what she wanted after years of emotional torn between the feud of two teammates she became very close to, but beyond the ridiculous hair color, the normally talkative facade and not to mention her flaring temper, was a figure he grudgingly respected.

In retrospect, Sasuke had expected Sakura to be like the other females: Gush around him and his new look. He was wrong to say the least. The first reaction he received from her was that from a horror scene.

_"Sasuke!" She hissed. "Just what is that... that thing on your face?" She ran up to him, a hand on his chin, rotating his face back and forth to confirm the horrors of what she was seeing._

_He reacted to this sudden measure by grabbing her hand and pulling it down before he sustained a headache from the constant rotations. "Hn, it's called a stubble," he replied in a flat tone._

The two continued to childishly bicker, but somehow through all the arguments and opposite opinions they held, the two unconditionally fell in love. Out of all the moments spent with her, their prolonged banters were the ones he was most fond of. Not because they resulted in comical endings, but that he could not remember the last time he spoke to anyone in such large amounts at one go. It was a feat that even Naruto failed (his one-and-only best friend, the dolt had claimed), and she was able to bring it out of her stubborn mule in a flash.

Even in his deepest descendant to darkness, she still harbored romantic feelings for him, so he returned it. Little did he know that he was returning her feelings more than he had calculated, and soon reciprocated his affection more than her not through actions, but through his eyes.

And even though Sakura continued to coax Sasuke to shave to lessen the level of lovesick women chasing him around, strangely enough he decided to keep it just to annoy her, either out of amusement or a newfound laziness.

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><p>How many times has this habit been going on, before he realized that such customs like this granted him such a series of fortunate events? To even have the option of being lazy, no longer brooding over his next victims, no longer burdened with an ancient curse of spite and malevolence. Just what was it that gave him the audacity to have the life that differentiated so much from his clan?<p>

Truth be told, his brother deserved the better life than he did, forced to shoulder a massive weight that resulted in his choice of pacifism while the oblivious little brother pranced about the compound with only the innocent intent of surpassing the genius...

Sasuke stared at himself one last time in the mirror, highly amused by the fact that facial hair brought about such luck to him. The hand that had been previously coated with shaving cream, he now disposed of it in the sink. The razor placed back where it was before he picked it up, and looked at his visage in the mirror one last time.

It was still the Sasuke everyone knew and loved (maybe not entirely loved by the community), but he looked older, more mature than the arrogant murderer he used to be. His once slender jaw that held an air of femininity had slightly broadened with the passing years, and the bottomless eyes that once held an ancient hatred had now subsided to a mellow, peaceful gaze. His notorious "hn" still remained, but it no longer contained the haughty tone belonging to an emotionally torn individual.

The stubble that spanned his jaw line and into the neck will stay, he decided. Besides, if this is a sign of growing old, then why not embrace it? He grew to admire the new look, it made him different, not to mention the level of fan girls stalking him had lessened ever since he moved in with Sakura.

No longer feeling tired from the morning rays, Sasuke cleaned his hands of the white foam and washed his face with ice cold water that further awoke his dulled senses. When he finished, he exited the bathroom and crawled back into bed where his lover still lay sleeping under the protective covers. It had been a long night, he admitted; she was working the night shift at the hospital, coming home and giving into his desires even though she was exhausted from the workload. The stubble that coated his chin lovingly stroked her right shoulder, coaxing Sakura to wake up.

Feeling the abrasive texture grazing gently against her shoulder, Sakura slowly opened her eyes, recognizing the long lost sensation as she immediately craned her neck to the direction where she felt that once familiar feeling.

"Sasuke...," she groggily said while rubbing her eyes. "What time is it? And what's with that hair on your face?"

"No," he stoically replied as he helped her get up from the heavy covers. As much as he changed over the past few years, his dry tone and flat responses are some things that will never change.

Just as she thought it was safe to support herself with her palm of her hands, Sasuke suddenly grabbed her left wrist and brought her face inches to his.

"And it's not going to happen for a while either," he declared. Although known for refuting his emotions, Sakura could tell he was happy just from his body language and the tone of his voice.

She smiled as she briefly closed the gap between the contours of their face. "Is that so, Uchiha Sasuke?" She mewled. "May I remind you that the girls you worked so hard to drive away will now be on your tail?"

He gave his infamous "hn" and proceeded to say, "Then I won't leave the premises until I grow a 10-inch beard."

Sakura gave a sigh as she gave up arguing against him. "You know what?" She said as she propped herself with her elbows when he finally let go of her wrist. "That stubble's basically seen everything we've been through. It's like a memory bank. But please," she begged while knitting her brows. "Don't grow a beard, Sasuke." I can tolerate hair here and there on your face, but a beard is where I draw my line. I don't want our child to have a father to walk around with a scraggly beard and looks like a homeless man. It won't even recognize you once you're rid of that thing."

The Uchiha gave his infamous smirk and grazed his stubble over her swollen abdomen, listening to the tiny growth of chakra flicker with life. Sakura gave a long sigh, stroking his hair while enjoying the contact while Sasuke continued to interact with his unborn child through an array of touches.

"Which reminds me..." she awakened from the myriad of contact on her stomach Sasuke was applying. "Our child will be born out of wedlock, and its surname will be in dispute, so there will be speculations of the baby being either an Uchiha or a Haruno..."

"It will be a Haruno," he responded decisively. "I don't want my unborn child to bear the burden of the Uchiha grudge." He stopped rubbing her belly and instead intently gazed at her abdomen with a long stare. "The best I can do to erase my past sins is to end the cursed line," he continued. "It may inherit the Sharingan, but the name will ultimately die with me. There 's been enough trouble with my ancestry, and I don't wish for it to continue."

"Why, though?" Sakura inquired, taken aback from his remark. "Wasn't it your lifelong dream to rebuild your clan after all those events? To start anew?"

Dark eyes uncomfortably shifted as it was difficult for a man who had bottled up his emotions throughout his entire life is forced to uncork the contents he so fiercely guarded. "It was," he finally admitted after a pregnant pause. "But there are things more important than simply reproducing. Our child will be born not because out of a selfish need to carry on a name, but out of our commitment and... l-love." Sasuke finished his sentence anti-climatically with an awkward stutter, clearly uncomfortable with using such a word.

Sakura could sense the tension in her lover's voice, and gently rubbed her palm against his arm to calm his emotions. Sasuke instinctively closed his eyes as he felt her touch cooled his swelling anger rising inside himself. He cannot change the past as he had realized a long time ago, and can only shape the future for the better.

"Are you really okay with this choice?" she asked. "Your legacy and the Uchiha as a name will be lost forever if we go on with this."

"Yes," he decisively responded, taking her hand that was stroking his arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Names are only a set of words," he stated. "They are burdened each time by every action we do. I don't want our child to shoulder the burden of such a heavy and tainted weight."

Sakura closed her eyes peacefully. "If you say so, Sasuke..." she whispered.

The two continued to stay this way until Sasuke broke the silence. "If you dare tell any of this to your girl friends," he mockingly threatened. "I'll-"

His lover placed her index finger over his lips to silence his sentence. "Your secret's safe with me, Sasuke," she assured him. "... As long as you keep your stubble at a reasonable length," she finished with a small smile.

"Hn, then I'll keep it forever." _For the memories, _he thought.

It had been a long and hard journey since his days as a ruthless avenger but now, a bright light could be seen shining at the end of a long and winding tunnel.

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><p>Note: So you might be wondering why I named the title like that. Think about it; Sasuke's change was the stubble, which led to his habit of shaving on a daily basis. This led him to nearly forget of all the events that happened around him, and the reason for growing back his stubble was to revive those memories. Yes, it's a weird topic to write about, considering we're talking about facial hair and beards and all that jazz, but it's the process of creativity in a somewhat twisted way.<p>

And no, Sasuke and Sakura aren't married, just living together, hence the debate whether their baby should be an Uchiha or a Haruno.


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